Review of 2022: product news, market developments and finally events again!

FINALLY TRADE FAIRS AGAIN

After two years of corona and virtual events, it was a great experience for us to be able to go to trade fairs and events again this year. Even if we had slight doubts beforehand: E-world in May proved to be very successful for us with 180 exciting discussions on site and three new customers who decided in favour of our software solutions as a result of the E-world discussions. It was an exciting but also exhausting three days - but at least the winter coat could stay at home.

But it wasn't just trade fairs that took place again - a lot has also happened in metering. And this was not just wishful thinking at the metering days and the smartOPTIMO Network & Sales Forum - because the planned changes to the MsbG were only recently published (more on this here), which make us optimistic about the coming years and hope that something will finally happen to the metering infrastructure in Germany. After all, this will create the basis for providing consumers with transparency about their energy consumption - so that energy and CO2 can be saved effectively. ⚡

NEW OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH NEW PRODUCT FEATURES

For the energy management software, the foundation was mainly laid for the flexibilisation of master data and interfaces. This should make it possible to flexibly connect all types of interfaces and transmission protocols in 2023. By making the master data more flexible, it should be possible to flexibly map any organisational structure with visual rights and also implement complex metering concepts.

In addition, the baseline generator was finalised, which will be made available to all the customers participating in the energy-saving meter project. This makes it possible for customers to recognise relevant fluctuations in consumption and tap into potential savings.

In the EnergyCockpit, the focus was on the further development of the dashboard and the analysis for the electricity communities for our Horizon2020 project eCREW. With the extension, all community members can now view and analyse the entire electricity flow of the entire community.

Our registration process has also been revised and further developed: In future, customers of energy suppliers will only have to log in once, even across several divisions and meters. This is less time-consuming for the consumer and the grid / metering point operator receives all the data without any additional manual effort.

FACTS AND FIGURES OF 2022

We were once again able to increase our numbers: In 2022, we were able to convince seven new customers of our smart solutions, including Diakonieklinikum Stuttgart, a customer from the healthcare sector, and Sprinx, a Dutch energy service provider that will in turn offer our software to its commercial customers. We also implemented the mandatory HKVO and FFVAV visualisation with our long-standing customer Mainova at the beginning of the year. And all this despite not exactly easy conditions: Due to the warof aggression in Ukraine and the resulting energy and gas crisis, some energy suppliers have greatly de-prioritised investment in energy management software and other services - even though saving energy and transparency about consumption would be more important than many other things at a time like this.

The fact that we were still able to grow reinforces our mission, shows that we are on the right track with our intuitive energy management to create more transparency and climate protection. 🌱 And the shared mission and the working atmosphere are also reflected in the assessments of our colleagues: We were once again recognised by Focus Business as a top employer in the SME sector in 2023 and ranked 5th in the EDP & IT sector in Cologne 🏆 And we were also named a Top Company 2023 by kununu, putting us in the top 5% of the 1 million companies on kununu.

FROM THE SUMMER PARTY TO THE CHRISTMAS PARTY

This year, we were finally able to organise both an internal summer party and a Christmas party again. Even though the offices have filled up again this year, it's always nice to see all our colleagues again and celebrate together. With Mario Kart, table football, pub quizzes, dancing or just sitting together and chatting, we spent some great evenings with the best team in the world.

An internal hackathon also took place this year, in which interdisciplinary teams from the various software teams as well as IT administration and support worked on improving processes within development.

SCALING THE PROCESSES

In 2022, however, we not only made process advances in development: we have made our campaign and marketing management much more automated and we have also completely revised and significantly optimised the setup process in project management. We were also able to migrate almost all customer systems to Kubernetes this year, which enables us to guarantee even better maintainability, scalability and security. We are also constantly developing and learning from each other in all other areas. 🚀

MORE TO COME IN 2023

This year, we have celebrated together, shared our struggles, said goodbye to great colleagues and welcomed even greater ones. Now we are looking forward to 2023 and what it has in store for us. ♥

We would like to thank everyone in the team for their solidarity and commitment this year. And a big thank you to all our partners, customers, shareholders and service providers who have supported us this year and placed their trust in us. We wish everyone a peaceful festive season and will see you again in 2023 full of energy! 🎄💡